Five predictions for the rest of the Nuggets season

The Denver Nuggets begin the home stretch of their 2024-25 season with a 36-19 mark, good for third-best in the NBA’s Western Conference, but what does the future hold?

Nikola Jokic is eyeing a fourth MVP behind a historic stat line, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr are trending toward peak performance and the team is looking to win a second title in three seasons. How will this campaign differ from the last two that resulted in a championship and a franchise mark for most wins in a season?

Nuggets finish second in the West

Oklahoma City (44-10) has basically locked up first in the West, a full eight games ahead of second-place Memphis (36-18.) The Nuggets, winners of eight in a row, are just a half-game back of the Grizzlies. Recent numbers suggest Denver’s surge makes them the second-best team in the West and they should finish the season in that seed. Getting there would be a huge deal for the Nuggets playoff run as they would host home court for the first two rounds and more importantly avoid running into the Thunder until the conference finals. Now home court may not matter all that much given the Nuggets have been nails on the road in the postseason in the last few years and they also blew a giant lead in a Game 7 in Denver last season.

Behind the Nuggets are the struggling young Rockets, who are two games back, and a reforming Lakers group who is another half-game back of them. Realistically two of the four teams mentioned here will get the No. 2 and No. 3 seeds which will again be huge for avoiding OKC.

The Nuggets have the third-toughest schedule left in the NBA, but Memphis is right behind in fourth and the Lakers are ranked sixth there. While the Rockets have an easier slate, the Rockets have been without former All-Star point guard Fred VanVleet and they’re 4-6 in such games. He’s expected back soon but still listed as week-to-week and their recent skid means they’re already fighting from behind. Tasking the young team with punching up is a lot. Meanwhile, the Lakers, who have won eight of their last 10, are just 1-1 since getting Luka Doncic on the floor and both those games came against the lousy Jazz. It’ll take some time for Doncic to mesh with LeBron James and for rookie head coach JJ Reddick to figure out how to utilize their undersized roster. The Grizzlies are starting two rookies all the while their star Ja Morant struggles to stay healthy for more than a few games, eventually, their younger players are going to hit a wall for playing a season longer than they ever have before. But the Grizz have been awesome the last few years in the regular season, finishing second in the west twice and currently aiming for a third.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander will win the MVP

SGA has a big lead over Jokic in the MVP race, and surprisingly it’s not bigger given some of the media narratives. Despite Jokic’s absurd production, OKC’s best-record-in-the-NBA adds a lot to SGA’s resume. While SGA will be able to take some nights off after the All-Star Game, there’s a real likely scenario where Jokic does the same. Denver went 21-6 after the Break last season and then was tired as heck come the postseason. Having learned that lesson the Nuggets won’t be stressed about seeding and given what we just reviewed above, there’s a good chance that just decent play locks them into the second spot.

Jokic won’t be motivated to win the award, he never has been—SGA will be. Jokic won’t be looking to outplay SGA when his and Denver’s goals are so clearly aligned on a title. Denver’s lone ring came when Joker basically threw away the MVP race as the Nuggets tanked at the end of the season in 2023.

Jokic will average a triple-double

Even crazier than Jokic not winning MVP is not getting the award despite him making league history—which will happen. Jokic is averaging 29.8 points, 12.6 rebounds, 10.2 assists and 1.8 steals a game on 57.7% shooting from the field, 45% from deep and 82% from the arc. Those are the best marks or second-best numbers of his already three-time MVP career. If he finishes with those numbers, his triple-double average would make him the only non-point guard ever to do that in a season, joining now-teammate Russell Westbrook (four times) and Oscar Robertson as the only ones to do that. Jokic even bests them as the only player to do so while shooting over 50% from the field.

The points and the rebounds will be there, the assists are the question, which could take care of themselves if…

MPJ and Blue Arrow set career marks for points per game

Porter’s career high for points per game is 19 flat, which is exactly what he’s averaging now. Murray’s career high for points per game is 21.2, and he’s at 21.0 right now. While it may not seem like it, especially given the rocky start but the Blue Arrow could follow up the best regular season of his career with an even stronger one. In Murray’s last 30 games, when everyone agrees his season turned around, the 27-year-old is averaging 22.9 points, 6.1 assists, 3.9 rebounds on 49.4 shooting, 39.8 from deep and 91.3 from the stripe. 2.1 turns and 1.4 steals a night. Keep doing that, heck even a bit less than that and Murray will end up with a new career scoring best.

For Porter, he’s notched 30-point games in his last three games. He’s not going to do that the rest of the way but it’s not shocking that one of the best shooters of his generation might finally take the leap into a 20-point-per-game scorer, helped by a stronger finishing ability than he’s displayed in the past. MPJ is averaging 20 points per night over his last 26 games played going back to Christmas time.

Russell Westbrook does not start again

If the three guys mentioned above are healthy and so too are Aaron Gordon and Christian Braun, Westbrook isn’t getting another start. Only in the case of injury or absence with Westbrook be elevated from his sixth-man role. Westbrook got bumped into the starting lineup for 20 straight games, the last two coming while all the other guys were healthy. At first, Gordon was on the bench, working back from an injury and then it was Braun who was pushed to the pine. Almost cosmically, Westbrook was injured and about half the other members of the team too, right when this decision was made.

Aside from the bad juju, Braun has more than proved his position in the starting five. The third-year player has been marvelous on offense and is still doing enough on defense to get by—if he can couple those aspects of his game Denver might have found a special player—and those types do not come off the bench. As for Westbrook, he was brought in to organize the role players and give Michael Malone a solution for the non-Jokic minutes. Now with a reformed group that includes sophomore sharpshooter Julian Strawther, the resurgent Zeke Nnaji, veteran DeAndre Jordan and uber-athlete Peyton Watson, it’s time the Nuggets solidify how that group operates. Having the former MVP Westbrook there will be huge and it’s the role he was signed to play. Given his successes elsewhere this season, Westbrook thriving while biting off a smaller chunk could be a win for everyone.